Can Gurpreet Singh lead India to a gold medal in the 25m rapid fire pistol event?

Cuba’s Leuris Pupo (centre) will be looking to win his second consecutive gold at Rio

The men’s 25 metres rapid fire event is one of the five pistol events that take place in the Olympic Games. It will take place on 13th August 2016 at the National Shooting Range in Rio just before the men’s skeet final.

The event will see India’s Gurpreet Singh take part after Vijay Kumar had won a silver medal in the same event at London 2012. India’s hopes will be high this time as 12 shooters in all have qualified for them. Gurpreet Singh is one of the shooters who will look to spring a surprise at the Games.

The 25m rapid fire pistol shooter had last won the gold medal in this event at the 2010 Commonwealth Games held in New Delhi. He has since finished in the top 10 a staggering 12-times at the ISSF events. But he has failed to capitalize on his performances in the qualification stages.

However, his consistency makes him a medal hopeful going into the Games.

Here are some of the details about the event:

What is the 25 metres rapid fire pistol event?

The 25m rapid fire pistol is International Shooting Sport Federation shooting event which will also take place at the Olympic Games in Rio. In this event, the athletes shoot over a distance of 25 metres or 27.34 yards in standing positions. The shooters are allowed to use a 5.6 millimetres or a 0.22 inches caliber pistol which can have a maximum weight of 1.4 kilograms.

The shooters have to shoot at the center of the target which is positioned 1.4 metres above the floor. The total diameter is measured 500 millimeters. The diameter of the tenth ring measures 100 millimeters.

Rules

In the 25m rapid fire pistol event, the qualification round consists of every shooter firing 60 shots – two identical stages of 30 shots, divided in six series of 5 shots each. The shooters have to fire the first two series within 8 seconds, thereby the third and the fourth one within 6 seconds, while the last two series have to be fired within 4 seconds.

The scores for the qualification round are in integer points, with the maximum score per shot being 10 points. The maximum qualification score for any shooter can be 600 points.

Final

The final of this event consists of the top six athletes from the qualification phase. These shooters can shoot up to eight 5-shots series. These six finalists start the match with 0 points: the qualification score is not carried forward into the final round.

The interesting fact about this event is that the scoring system switches from a points system to a hit-or-miss system in the final match. In the hit-or-miss system, a score of 9.7 or higher is counted as a hit, whereas a score of 9.6 or less is counted as a miss.

The series begins with a four 5-shots series, each to be fired within 4 seconds of the first shot, which is to be followed by four more single 5-shots series. After the fourth series, the shooter with the lowest aggregate score is eliminated from the final and is placed 6th.

Any following elimination is determined at the end of each series until the Gold and Silver medallists are decided by the 8th and last conclusive series. If there is a tie for the lowest ranked athlete, the tied athletes are asked to fire additional tie-breaking series until the tie is broken, to decide wo goes through and who is eliminated.

The “Final Score” in the final match is the total number of hits scored by the shooters. The shooter with the most hits wins the gold medal. Incase the number of hits are equal, there is a shoot-off between the tied shooters.